The buffalo robe was nicely tucked around me, and the grey shawl pulled over my head; and feeling for my books, to make sure that I had them, we started.
“Niver saw the like of such a day,” said Jerry. “If I had not seen you in the morning— It was about ten you fell.” Again I shuddered, and thought of my poor dead father, as near our home as I was to the academy; and in that blinding storm we failed to see him.
The next day was Saturday; and as I sat in Miss Grimshaw’s back room, petted a little more than usual by Jennie and grandma, I thought of Mr. Harlan’s words, “No right effort is ever lost.” And it seemed that I could hear again Mr. Kirby’s voice, “Whatever you do, do well, and God will open a path to something better.” Since then they have come to me often in characters of light, to brighten my darkest hours. They have helped me labor on. When my heart was sore with heaviness, they have aided me in adhering to the right in despite of ridicule and temptation.
“No right effort is ever lost.” “Do what you do well, and God will open a path to you, when he sees that you can do something better.” Bind the sentiment to your heart, if you are a patient climber, and take courage. But I had not yet found the way to the Source of all strength, nor learned the secret of the only true and noble life.
At the close of the term, in February, we had an examination. This was new to me, and caused me no little uneasiness. I had never been through with such a day, and as a matter of course I felt not a little frightened at the idea of being questioned before such a crowd as the boys told me always came. Mr. and Mrs. Harlan were very kind and patient teachers, and I was so fresh and new in my studies, that I trembled in view of the blunders I felt sure I should make before strangers and critics.
“All Terryville will be here,” said Henry Alden; “but then you need not mind: you are the best one we have in arithmetic, and history too; and as for your Latin, why you are only a beginner; they wont expect much; and in declamation you know you will take the lead.”
“But I have never spoken before so many.”
“That’s nothing; you’ll get accustomed to it in a few times. We don’t mind it a feather. It a’n’t half of them that know.”
The day came. Miss Grimshaw and Jennie rode with Mr. Willett in a nice sleigh, with a double set of bells. Then there was Mr. Farnham and Mr. Wentworth, ministers from Terryville, with Dr. Graham and Dr. Stiles, and several grey-haired men with gold-bowed glasses and ivory-headed canes, and with books in their hands, evidently ready to criticize closely.
“That’s the way they always do,” said Henry; “but if you could peep over their shoulders, ten chances to one their books are wrong side up.”